To

The Office of the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia,

 

The UN Office in Yerevan,

 

The European Union Delegation to Armenia,

The CoE Office in Yerevan,

 

The OSCE Office in Yerevan,

 

The local and international human rights organizations functioning within the territory of the Republic of Armenia,

 

The embassies functioning in the Republic of Armenia, 

 

The media representatives

 

 

Announcement

Honorable ladies and gentlemen,

This announcement alerts to the abuse of powers by a number of employees of the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Armenia. А few days ago “Veles” Human Rights NGO marked the 2^nd anniversary of its official registration. During these two years we introduced about twenty complaint letters, telegrams and reports about the behaviour of a number of investigators of the RA Investigative Committee, and as a response to them we always received letters with similar content that made no sense.

The combination of facts, mentioned in the applications and reports we introduced, indisputably proves that instead of performing obligations prescribed by the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia and instead of ensuring the protection of citizens from crimes and criminals:

• the RA Investigative Committee, in the name of its imployees, shows exclusive favouritism towards the former state officials of the RA relating to legalisation of their illegal activities and violation of rights and interests of citizens who suffered from their activities and were expropriated

Particularly this refers to the former Head of Civil Aviation Department of the RA — Hovhannes Eritsyan, who has — according to several families having applied to our organisation — been engaged in usury for years and owned properties of a number of RA citizens providing them millions of dollars with high rates obtained through unknown ways, as well as committing document forgeries.

• the RA Investigative Committee, in the name of its imployees, puts pressure upon and makes threats against those who speak of and claim to bring to responsibility the abovementioned former official

 

Thus Criminal Cases No 17112714 (Part 1 of Article 325 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia) and No 13127214 (Part 1 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia) on owning properties of G. Tumasyan, Z. Meliqyan, Z. Gyozalyan and R. Petrosyan by H. Eritsyan and his colleagues V. Vardanyan and A. Ayvazyan through usury and fraud have been initiated.

 

Another Criminal Case No 13142214 (Point 2 of Part 3 of Article 182 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia), parallely with the mentioned criminal cases, has been initiated against me — M. Poghosyan — Head of “Veles” Human Rights NGO.

 

It is noteworthy that the criminal case initiated against me has been examined for eight months, during which numerous criminal procedural violations have been committed, especially confrontations with weapon were organised with me, and I have repeatedly been offered to give up on the criminal cases initiated against H. Eritsyan and others. Testimonies and signatures have been lost from the materials of the criminal case, moreover, information about large-scale economic crime committed by H. Eritsyan was obtained during the criminal investigation which has been hidden by the investigator and her superior.

 

Also people who have ordered Criminal Case No 13142214 — realising that I do not yield to pressure – eventually suspend Criminal Case No 13142214 initiated obviously ungrounded against me, explaining that the person — H. Eritsyan — against whose report the criminal case has been initiated, did not realise the content of the report he gave.

 

Parallely with Criminal Case No 13811015 initiated on the basis of reports of foreign investors who have suffered from Viktor Ter-Hovsepyan’s activities — son of S. Osipov, another former official — the RA Attorney General, according to the bad practice adopted by some employees of the RA Investigative Committee, initiated another Criminal Case (No 14149815) against me. Within the framework of this case attempts to carry out searches without legal ground were made in apartments belonging to my relatives.

 

By Criminal Case No 14149815  property of such persons who did not even have the status of a witness was seized and threats were issued against me, my family and relatives by questioning me.

 

With regard to threats and pressures upon me through the initiated Criminal Case No 14149815 convictions of the deputy of RA National Assembly, RA Human Rights Defender, international human rights organisations lead to suspention of the case on 19 October 2015. Nevertheless, the RA Investigative Committee is extremely interested in continuing these pressures and in January 2016 the decision on suspending Criminal Case No 14149815 was removed.

 

• Actually the RA Investigative Committee tries — through initiating obvious, ungrounded criminal cases — to put pressure upon me in order neither I, nor our organisation could maintain the protection of interests of RA citizens and foreign citizens who suffered from illegal activities of high-rank officials, in order we could realise that any attempt to speak of illegalities committed by former and current officials shall lead to initiation of a serial criminal cases against me with the purpose of putting pressure upon me.

 

 

Furthermore, the investigators of the RA Investigation Committee have approved that initiation of that criminal case directly relates to activities of “Veles” Human Rights NGO which fights against system problems and such pressures are natural.

We hope that the Head of the RA Investigative Committee shall take responsibility for ensuring the legality of activities carried out by investigators within the structure he heads and for preventing violations committed by them, the favouritism and the corruption risks, we also hope that international and local human rights organisations shall make efforts in the fight against illegalities existing in the field and violations of human rights.

 

Head of “Veles” Human Rights NGO — Marina Poghosyan

15 February 2016